Last summer at the London Palladium it was the Rachel Zegler show, as the American star headlined a phenomenal revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita. So successful was this glossy formula that it has been lightly tweaked and repeated for 2026, with Sam Ryder making his theatre debut in Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar, presented in a scintillating production by Tim Sheader.

Ryder, who went superstellar overnight as he bagged second place for the UK in Eurovision 2022, certainly had the hair – flowing, scruffy – for the part, but could he provide the rest? The answer is a resounding yes.

This sung-through show, about the final days of Jesus’s life and his betrayal by Judas, started life as a concept album in 1970 before opening on Broadway a year later. It proves the perfect fit for Ryder, given that no spoken word acting is required, just incredibly powerful and expressive singing, which he can supply in spades.

Near the start of the second half, he lets rips so powerfully in vocal-chord-busting solo “Gethsemane” that the first-night audience gave it a standing ovation. How he will manage to sustain this eight times a week for months on end as the production continues is another question.

Sheader’s production, with choreography from Drew McOnie, was first seen at London’s Open Air Theatre in 2016, where its success won it an Olivier Award. It has been expanded for its new setting in one of the capital’s grandest and largest theatres; now the action flows liberally into the aisles of this capacious space. The industrial-aesthetic design continues, with the stage surrounded by scaffolding that is clambered over by the limber ensemble.

As Jesus suffers his last, the famous title number is sung by the ensemble as a frenzied gospel choir (Photo: Johan Persson)

As Ryder makes his first entrance in billowing ochre shirt and trousers, this heavily tattooed Jesus looks as though he’d far rather be in a yurt at a music festival than inspiring adulation and hatred in Jerusalem.

He and Judas (a blazing Tyrone Huntley) prowl the stage with rock-star-style, hand-held microphones; occasionally, the amplification blurs the clarity of the lyrics, which causes problems for a show where all the storytelling is done through song. It struck me too that the Christian story, in particular the events of Holy Week that this piece loosely details, is by no means as universally known as it was in 1970.

Ryder and Huntley head the cast and are supported by Desmonda Cathabel as a powerful, secretly lovestruck Mary Magdalene, who utterly commands the immense stage when she stands alone for her plangent solo numbers. There’s brief welcome relief from the gathering solemnity of Biblical events in the second half with a jaunty vaudeville number (sample lyric: “Prove to me that you’re no fool/ Walk across my swimming pool”) from an outrageously camp King Herod.

A revolving cast of guest performers will take on this role during the run – acclaimed classical actor Simon Russell Beale is an eye-catching name, as is Rob Brydon – and the first incumbent is Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson, looking like a cross between Queen Elizabeth I and Captain Hook in an extravagant gold costume.

Yet, moments of mirth are not what Jesus Christ Superstar is about and as the story nears its end, Ryder and Sheader supply myriad memorable tableaux.

As Jesus suffers his last (with blood beautifully evoked by a scattering of gold dust), the famous title number is sung by the ensemble as a frenzied gospel choir. What a show – and Ryder is a star.

Jesus Christ Superstar is at the London Palladium to 5 September and at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane 16 October – 9 January. Next year it tours the country.